Stitches and a Headache
by RejoiceItsSusan
Summary: For hoodie-time's sick!Dean week. Gen. After Shadow, Dean gets sick and is really embarrassed about it.


"Mrs. Goldstein, can you think of anyone who may have wanted to hurt your son?" It's the same question they always ask every hunt. And, as usual, Mrs. Goldstein just can't think of any reason someone would want to hurt her poor son Lewis.

Sammy is leading this interview of course—old ladies love him. Dean, on the other hand, keeps forgetting to keep his sympathetic-FBI-agent face on. He only remembers when he glances at Sam and sees his eyebrows pulled together, his lips slightly pouted, head nodding in all the right places. Dean is busy focusing on not sniffling too loud, not ruining his suit by wiping his snot on it, not sneezing, and keeping the contents of his stomach where they belong. It's easier said than done, especially in this room that smells of old lady and cat droppings. Dean finds it uniquely unsettling—it's uncomfortably humid and everything is covered with a combination of doilies, intricate framing, and feline imagery.

He had accepted a cup of the old lady's tea hoping it would help settle his stomach, but it's becoming apparent to Dean that he is on the losing side of this battle. He gags and he feels the sting of stomach acid in his throat. Shit.

He interrupts Mrs. Goldstein, asking for a restroom, and she shoos him down the hall. Without looking at Sam, he hurries as casually as he can out of the room. His brother will likely think he is just snooping around.

Dean manages to close the door to the bathroom all the way and turn on the sink faucet before dropping to his knees and emptying the contents of his stomach into the toilet. He pukes three times, sticking his fingers down his throat afterwards to make sure he doesn't have any more left in him. He doesn't want to have to keep running to toilets for the rest of the afternoon, it's best to get it all out while he's already here.

When he woke up this morning, dizzy and nauseous, he only thought he was hungover. He hadn't drank very much the night before, but he hadn't slept much either and it's not like he can always predict his hangovers. In retrospect, he'd been feeling a little bit under the weather for a few days, but it wasn't enough for him to actually have to acknowledge it. It wasn't until he was picking up coffee for himself and Sam this morning that he realized that this was the type of sick that's more his own body sabotaging itself than the consequences of last night.

The barista was about to hand him Sammy's coffee order when the first sneezing fit hit him. He sneezed three times, wracking his body and causing him to spill his own cup of black all over his flannel and jeans. Sniffling and frantically looking around to see if anyone had seen him, the full force of his nausea, dizziness, and headache sank in. He could almost feel his cheeks coloring with fever and embarassment. And sure enough, a businesslike woman in a pantsuit waiting for her drink was peering from behind glasses at him with an amused smile while the barista gave a little laugh along with her "bless you." The heat of humiliation pooled in his rolling stomach. He wiped his nose on his shirt and squeaked out an apology while his brain screamed at him to get out of there. She started to say something about a refill, free of charge, just one minute, but Dean just gave her a tight smile, placed his cup back on the serving station and high-tailed it back to the Impala. He drove back to the motel, coffee-less, with stains down his shirt. He'd been hoping that even if he apparently had a cold, it wouldn't enter flu territory, but he's gone and lost that battle too.

In the bathroom he lets out a whiny groan, his forehead pressed against the cool toilet seat, his jittery arms holding his body up. Dean does not want to be sick, not now. Yeah, this hunt seems almost boringly straightforward, just a vengeful spirit with a grudge against bankers like Mrs. Goldstein's son. The interview they're conducting at the moment is more out of routine than necessity. It should be over with a quick salt & burn tonight, but you never know. It could turn out to be something more dangerous, or any number of things could make the hunt take a bad turn, and he needs to be at the top of his game, constantly, especially now that Sammy is relying on him too and they could run into their dad again. If he somehow let one freaking flu screw everything up he'd never forgive himself.

An injury would be different. Injuries are something you earn. Ever since he was a kid, he would never wear band-aids or bandages unless he absolutely had to. An injury is a badge of bravery and badassery, one that he won in battle against some evil fugly. Even now, the fading cuts on his forehead from the daevas might not be pretty, but they're physical proof he did something right.

Being sick, though, is the opposite. It's not a side effect of helping anyone. It's a failure of his own body that just fucks everything up for no legitimate reason and causes him to look like a dumb ass in coffee houses. Being sick is lazing around a motel room doubly sick with anxiety because his dad is out hunting with someone he's not sure he can trust. Being sick is his eyes blurring as he points the gun at a wendigo, missing the shot, and giving the wendigo the chance to charge at John, breaking his arm. Dean does not want to be sick.

Finally he spits in the toilet and stands up, staring in the mirror. The lacerations on his forehead are fading but still visible. His eyes are red and puffy, his face pale, his freckles prominent. He looks sick, no question about it. He huffs in frustration as his stomach lurches with a panic that he will leave this bathroom and look sick, and everyone will be able to tell. Sam will know. Mrs. Goldstein might even fuss over him about it. What if John finds them again, and he can tell? At that thought, Dean has to lower himself to sit on the step-stool in the corner of the bathroom. He covers his eyes and takes deep breaths.

He knows it's ridiculous, worrying about this. People get sick. They do. Dean knows he should be allowed to get sick. It's just—you never know when a hunt will take a deadly turn, or your dad will want you back, and he has to help his brother, and doesn't want anyone to die because he's dizzy or puking. And he doesn't want anyone to know that his stupid body is stupid enough to let this happen.

Eventually he gets back up and focuses on making himself appear not-sick. He doesn't really have much of a sense of the passage of time at the moment, but he hopes he hasn't been in the bathroom for a ridiculously long time. He can always just tell Sam he was taking a shit, anyway. The first step is making himself not smell like vomit. Luckily, Mrs. Goldstein keeps toothpaste in here. He squirts some Crest onto his finger and brushes it along his teeth, following it up with some mouthwash. He finds some perfume and sprays his suit. Smelling like old lady is better than smelling like puke, probably. Next he washes his face, hoping he'll look refreshed instead of sickly. He fishes through her cabinets, but it appears that's all he can really do without getting into her makeup, which—not happening. He tries out a grin at himself in the mirror. Whatever.

Sam is finishing up the interview when Dean returns and sits back down on the floral patterned couch. Sam hands the widow a tissue and glances at Dean, raising his eyebrows. Dean doesn't know what that's supposed to imply, so he makes a face in response. Finally, Mrs. Goldstein stops crying and escorts them out. Sam thanks her for her time and Dean even tosses in a comforting word of his own, promising her they'll find whoever did it. When they're back to the Impala, Sam turns to him.

"Okay, Dean, what the hell?"

"...What?"

"Why did you use that lady's toothpaste?" He leans closer to Dean and sniffs. "AND her perfume?" He's laughing now, Sammy's genuine, open-mouth, head-thrown-back laugh that Dean appreciates a hell of a lot more when it isn't at his own expense.

"What?! I didn't!" Sam raises his eyebrows. Dean tries to come up with some sort of excuse or distractingly hilarious insult, but he feels all wobbly and his brain is all clogged up. It won't let him think.

Now Sam narrows his eyes at Dean, scrutinizing. Dean has to fight the urge to hide his face with his hands. Sam's hand is up and feeling Dean's forehead before he has time to register it, much less dodge it. "Dude, you're burning up."

Dean smacks the hand away. "No, I'm not. Whatever." He gets in the car, and apparently Sam recognizes that the loud door slam is proportional to how much he needs to drop the subject.

Back at the motel table, Sammy powers up the laptop. "Just take a quick nap or something. I'm gonna find out where this guy was buried and then we can go take care of it."

Dean grunts in response, eyeing Sam and then the bed in suspicion. It looks so comfy, and you don't have to be sick to take a nap, anyway. He collapses onto it and presses his face into the pillow. "Wake me up in twenty."

When he does wake, groggy and disoriented, the room is dark. He jerks himself upright and squints around the room. The blinking red digits on the bed side clock tell him it's three in the morning, and next to the clock is a new bottle of gatorade and a box of kleenex. Dean's boots are off, and there's a garbage can next to his bed that hadn't been there before either. In the other bed, Sammy is fast asleep, his boots muddy at the foot of his bed like he'd carelessly toed them off after a salt and burn.

"Sam," Dean whispers loudly. His brother blinks awake, and smiles.

"Hey, I took care of it," Sammy calmly assures him. "Just get some rest."


End file.
